European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 24, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 columns the stars and stripes George will cottage cheese candidates need Gramm s zip As the two probable presidential nominees tip toe toward their rewards dispensing rhetorical cottage cheese. Sen. Phil Gramm the tews Republican is Loo polite to ask where s the Celt Bui he knows How to provide some. He thinks about policy with a boldness both candidates Lack and with a substance George Bush should borrow. Seven years ago Gramm an economics professor Tum cd congressman was a Democrat who could be forgiven for feeling that he and a few friends were at the wheel of the world. Back then when the world was Young and David Stockman was King a handful of conservative democratic congressmen called Boll wee vils were crucial to president Reagan s narrow win for his Tan and spending cuts. Since then Gramm has become o Republican a senator and co author or the emblematic legislation of this decade. The deficit was j233 billion when Gramm Rudman was enacted. If this year s Gramm Rudman deficit reduction targets Are hit the deficit will be si36 billion and will have been Cut in half As a percentage of Gross National product. In the last ii election years spend ing has grown on average 10,5 percent. If Tramm Ruilman is enforced spending will grow just 4.5 per cent this year. Last year spending Rose Only 1.4 per cent the entitlement portion of government grew by Man than thai but the non entitlement portion shrank if Gramm s Only objective were the confinement of government Hii policy would be sterile. However he connects that goal with growth of Opportunity at Home and of democracy abroad. It is for conservatives an Agenda for social invigoration. For liberals it is on example of Hal an Agenda looks like. Since the end of the 1982 recession. Gramm notes the . Economy has created nearly 16 million jobs. The number of worker coming just the mini mum wage has fallen 25 percent. The number of peo ple working for businesses that employ 500 or More workers has declined. This decline testifies to creating new businesses so a shift toward smaller units of manufacture and to efficiencies forced by foreign Competition. The dangerous drive for Protection from such com petition ignores some facts. The to quadrupling of America s Trade deficit since 1982 has not prevented creation of 14 million new jobs or a 28 percent decline in unemployment while unemployment Rose 17 percent and 20 percent in Japan and the european Community respectively the Trade deficit did not prevent the Economy from Martin Gottlieb creating jobs three times faster than Japan and 20 limes faster than West Germany. The Trade deficit has not meant the eclipse of manufacturing. The deficit has coincided with an annual increase of 135.000 manufacturing jobs from 19s2 through 1987. Today As for the last so years manufacturing is about 20 percent of Gnu. Gramm s doctrine of social invigoration has a for eign policy application. Development Aid has he says been based on a misunderstanding of the Marshall plan s Success. That plan was less important for its direct material Aid than for its substantial reduction of Trade barriers against european and japanese goods the marshal plan primed the pumps and opened markets the mistaken interpretation of the plan that in was the new Deal let Loose upon the world exporting creative statism has Given Rise to foreign Aid that expands collectivism and the Public sector in recipient nations proper policy says Gramm would emphasize the political fecundity of such economic rights As the right to private property and the right of contract. Capitalist empowerment of individuals Breeds pres sure for democratization. A goal worthy or the american people says Gramm is to give nations not merely a slice of cake but the recipe for baking cakes. Trade should be conditioned on adoption of free Market policies. Thanks to the recipe Taiwan has a per eap iia in come 13 times thai of communist China. Thirty five years ago. South Korea had a per capita income of s50. Today in is $3,000 and South Korea is a world Power ninth in Gnu seventh in defense spending. South Korea Gramm believes May be confirming the conservative hypothesis inn economic Devegh pm Cal driven by capitalism generates pressure for democracy. The Success of the asian rim is not due to uncommonly talented populations but to a capitalist system lit should be an american Export that elicits extraordinary efforts from common people. Now one need not subscribe to All the substance of Gramm s synthesis of policies. Various Democrat Sens. Bill Bradley and Pat Moynihan arc examples offer alternative fusions of political theory and prac Tice. All such examples of intellectual reach underscore How terminally timid arc the current thoughts of the two cottage cheese candidatesu., Wirtnen or dip the arguments for Aga psf legalizing of drugs Proiti Litton ii. Perhaps someday that s what the current Era in american politics will be called. Again the nation is trying and failing to prohibit the consumption of mind Al Lenng drugs. Again the result is a thriving underworld that wreaks havoc with our cities thai seems to Many Urban kids to be the Way out of poverty thai be comes the chief eur enforcement prob Lem of tile time. Gang slaying Over turf raids that round up Consumers bul do nothing about the criminals. It s All pretty familiar. So Calls for Cigali Alion arise. They spark a debate that so far is not so much Between liberals and conservative As among liberals and among conserva Tives. Intro ideological do balls lend o be the most interesting because they Are the ones conducted with some respect for opposing views. The of Lumina failure of prohibition ii aside some liberals Are drawn to legalization by their live and Lel live predisposition of personal behaviour conserva Tives have a similar predisposition on economic issues. The democratic mayors of washing ton and Baltimore have called for legalization As have conservative polemicist William f. Buckley or. And conservative economist Milton Friedman Foren Ompoc Hul most politicians of both stripes remain opposed. The legalization debate is Welcome As a diversion from a political Campaign in which the surest Way to Victory is seen As Labelling your opponent soft on Drura or. In the a ending vernacular simply to drug him. Buckley favors legalizing not Only drug consumption bul the import of drugs. With one stroke he says you could chop the legs off panamanian general Nanuel Antonio Noriega and the whole army of cretins who make Mui icy off Lite suffering of c Onsko native columnist Pat Buchanan disagrees strongly. He insists that would increase con sumption and would merely cause organized crime to diversify. Bul such pragmatic considerations Are not what he wants to talk about. This is the counter argument Ems who Are you Bluenose to impose your values on the rest of society Here 1 think we approach the heart of the matter. My own sense is that we Ameri cans. No longer share the same code of morality the same religious Faith the same idea of patriotism the same concept of the Good society. To Ameri Ca s academic Anistis and Media elite recent decades have brought. Great advances for human Freedom and dignity. The other half looks out and sees moral decadence social decomposition National decline a society going to hell in a hand Basket Little More Worth Sav ing than Berlin in the Weimar Republic. This conflict of visions As Thomas Sowull describe in is behind America s second civil War a War unlikely to re main civil very Long. " Why Are you trying to in pose your values upon be rest of us is the angry taunt thrown up at traditionalist Ameri Ca the answer Back is that someone s values will always serve As the basis of Law and Why not ours Why yours one suspects that Buchanan is mad because some of his fellow conservatives Are undermining the Effort to Pul the Coke snorting liberals in jail. For Buckley politics is the use of Ideal to better the human condition. For Buchanan and apparently Voweil politics is War. Maybe Buckley is too cerebral. Even when he uses such uncharacteristically plebeian language Ai chop the legs off.,. The cretins he is still widely suspected of dealing with things in a Way that has something to do Wilh having read an awful lot As a kid. For Buchanan Buckley s naivete lie in not understanding that the enemy is in twin. That the dog Issue presents an Opportunity for conservatives to rally their troops against the enemy and that talk of legalization squanders that Opportunity. Buchanan s nuclear rhetoric is difficult to Lake seriously. The conservative half of America sees Little More Worth saving than Berlin in the Weimar Republic but rest assured other conserva Tives will agree Wilh him that conserva Tive have the Morel and political High ground on drugs and should t give it up. In these Days of ideological deadlock in the nation the Only major move by the government will be those which have trans ideological Appeal. Bul with Liber als fearful of being drugged and conservative eager to drug the trans ideologists do not have a very promising ii inc in legalization its merits aside. The opinions expressed in the columns and cartoons on Ibi pig represent Dune of the Toore it ire la no War to be considered As representing us its of the Sun mid Stripe or the United slain government
